Moon Phase is a bakery in St Leonards with a Korean spin on buttery pastries. It was formerly known as Layers but recently changed to Moon Phase, concentrating on viennoiserie. There is a tempting array of delicious pastries on offer, many incorporating the owners' Korean heritage. So what is a must order and are the signature items worth the hype?
It's 9:30am on a Saturday morning which is a touch early but pastries will always get me out of bed. "Is this it?" says Laura as we walk down a laneway towards the white bakery, illuminated in soft gold lighting. The interior is minimalist down to the tiny tables, just big enough to fit 2-3 pastries and coffee (and probably not designed for the dozen or so pastries that we want to try). "Total Korean vibes," I say to her. The queue at Moon Phase comes and goes; sometimes it can be intimidatingly long but other times like when we arrive, people can just walk in and order. There is quite a bit of seating indoors and some outdoors too.
Moon Phase was started by the married team of Frances and Jiyoon Song. Frances is the pastry chef while Jiyoon is the barista and coffee roaster. Service is patient and very friendly when Laura and I enter and excitedly order like two enthusiastic and hungry golden retrievers. We select 5 pastries that we like the sound of the most. Unfortunately they've just sold out of their signature savoury pastry, the Char Siu King but we manage to order everything else that we want.
"Would you like them warmed?" they ask and honestly this is the best question a bakery can ever ask and yet very few bakeries ask this. I get that it adds time onto service but if you're eating in and want to appreciate the butter and all of the ingredients and the beauty of the pastry, warmed pastries are the only way to go.
I take a bite into the hot dog and my eyes roll involuntarily it's that deliciously textural. There is a crisp, striated pastry that collapses with the bite and I hit a snappy, tasty pork frankfurter. There's a sweetness from the honey mustard and savouryness from cheese. While I was disappointed at missing out on the char siu king this pastry deserves a spot alongside it.
The Kimcheese scroll is a round Danish filled with kim chi and gruyere cheese. The centre is where all of the action is at so you're best off cutting this in half and then attacking from there to ensure that you get a bit of kimcheese in every bite. And kimcheese simply has to be added to the dictionary at some stage. The only negative would be that the bottom of this pastry is a bit burnt.
The Earl Grey custard and Lychee has tiny Earl Grey jelly cubes, chopped up lychees, edible flowers and a silky custard. It's sweet, heavy and creamy and if you love those flavours then this is for you. It's also damn pretty.
The black sesame bun is a milk bun dough but twisted like a version of a kanebullar or Swedish cinnamon bun. It is made up of gorgeous swirls and twists but with black sesame. This is my favourite of the sweet pastries because it isn't overly sweet but has a good amount of black sesame flavour.
The winter chai is a spectacularly pretty braided pastry with chai spice (cardamom, cinnamon and ginger) layers through the butter. The ends can be a bit dry, best to dip those in your coffee but the centre is soft, aromatic and buttery.
I spot a lull in the queue so I go back to the counter for round 2 and they tell us that they've just slid the second baking of the char siu pastry into the oven and it should be ready in about 10 minutes if we don't mind waiting. I let out a squeal of excitement. It comes out piping hot with a gentle warning about the hot filling. I wait for it to cool down and dig in. Oh yes. You definitely want to make sure that you nab one of these babies. There's so many cubes of char siu (fatty not lean because of course) and it's paired with a sweet brushed buttery puff pastry in a beautiful lattice pattern.
We also try the spicy pork and truffle and cheese twist pastry. These too are best cut in half so that you can access all of the delicious innards. I do love the spicy pork pastry which tastes just like gochujang bbq spicy pork at a Korean bbq complete with spring onions.
But it's the pissaladiere style truffle, cheese and onion pastry that I love just that bit more (it may also be because we've had so many pastries by now). It's a bit lighter than the Korean pork and the soft, caramelised onions are sweet and savoury at the same time. We don't really get much of the truffle though.
Their other signature is the chocolate bar. Laura and I don't really love pain au chocolat and while this is probably the nicest pain au chocolat we've had with a bar of Callebaut milk chocolate, we still prefer other pastries.
Like the kouign amann. This buttery, luscious, crispy pastry is excellent. It doesn't quite have as much toffee on the bottom as others that I've had but I like picking off bits of crispy, buttery knots, like you would monkey bread.
So tell me Dear Reader, what gets you out of bed on weekends?
All of the food in this post was independently paid for.
Moon Phase
Shop entry via Clarke Lane (off Oxley St, 96-97/545 Pacific Highway, St Leonards NSW 2065
Open Monday to Friday 7:30am-2pm
Saturday & Sunday 7:30am-3.30pm
https://moonphase.au/
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